In completing various operations in a well, different types of elements are activated. In many instances, such activatable elements are activated by fluid pressure, which can be in the form of hydrostatic pressure or hydraulic pressure. Hydrostatic pressure refers to pressure created by a column of fluid in a wellbore at any given depth of the wellbore. Hydraulic pressure refers to pressure applied through some conduit that is run into the wellbore.
One type of activatable element that can be deployed in a wellbore is a packer, which includes a sealing element that seals against an inner wall of the wellbore to isolate a particular zone of the wellbore. Traditionally, packers have been set mostly by using a hydraulic setting mechanism. However, a trend that has developed is that it is desirable to set packers using a hydrostatic mechanism, since a hydrostatic mechanism will eliminate or reduce well intervention during the packer setting stage. Since many existing designs of packers include a hydraulic setting mechanism, one conventional approach that has been used is to provide an add-on hydrostatic setting module, which is coupled to the packer. However, the use of such an add-on hydrostatic setting module adds to the overall length of the packer as well as to the cost of the packer.